


A Slender Knowing

by FabulaRasa



Category: Master and Commander - O'Brian
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-09
Updated: 2010-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:35:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulaRasa/pseuds/FabulaRasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is set in the aftermath of Stephen's escape from prison and torture after his capture in <i>H.M.S. Surprise</i>. I have a private theory that O'Brian wrote one book and then fanfic'ed his book for the remaining forty-odd books, so those who know fanfic will recognize the first part of <i>H.M.S. Surprise</i> as classic hurt/comfort. And talk about your Mary Sues -- if Diana's not one, then blow me out of the water and call me a long nine. Anyway, I love the books regardless, and it seems almost like cheating to slash them, when the slash isn't even subtextual in the books; it's so damned textual you almost want to avert your eyes. Well, <i>you</i> might.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Slender Knowing

Stephen swam to the surface from a sleep so deep it did not even feel like sleep; in fact, he was not, for an instant, at all sure he had been sleeping. For a blinking half-second, he was back in the waking dream world of the prison on Minorca, in the Governor's house, and for a longer second he felt the straps still on his wrists, and the dreadful hammering pain and stretch.

But then he heard the creak of the chair beside his bed, and the events since his escape landed on him, and the pain in his wrists settled to a dull throb. He wet his lips and turned his eyes to Jack, who sat (of course) beside his bed, canting back and forth in a spindly chair that had surely never done anything to deserve such sad use, his foot propped on Stephen's bed as he read. It was the foot that had woken him, naturally; even at rest, Jack could not be still, and the little chair creaked pitifully.

Catching Stephen's slight movement, Jack snapped the book shut, eyes bright on him. "You're awake! Did you rest well?"

Stephen groaned inwardly – no, that was outward as well. Heaven deliver him from the false cheer of the sickroom. He turned the conversation aside at once.

"What are you reading there?"

Jack glanced at the book in his hand as though he hadn't seen it before, and laughed. "Why! As to that, the only book in Mrs Moss's entire library, the dear. Apart from the cookbooks, of course. Shakespeare, can you credit it? It was this or Mrs Beeton's Household Management, and I fear Mrs Beeton's prose might be even rougher sailing than the bard's. But if you slept any longer, I might just have been driven to it."

Stephen shifted and sat up, though feebly, and Jack reached behind to plump and fluff the pillows, only putting them in a worse state. It made Stephen quite snappish, to see him carry on so.

"Leave it, leave it, my dear. I am perfectly easy. But if you could hand me that water? Yes, thank you."

How he hated Jack's eyes on him! Watchful, and grave, and still shadowed by that ferocity of rescue that had made Stephen feel so very much the damsel. If only he would stop staring and carrying on so, like an uxorious husband with his parturient wife.

"Which play were you reading?"

"Hmm?"

"I said, which play were you studying there?"

"Oh! Lear."

Stephen winced. "Sure, there is nothing amiss with my hearing. Why will people – rational, sensible people – persist in using such terribly loud voices around the ill? And as for being ill—" he tugged the blankets irritably, quite forgetting himself, and cried out at the sudden shock of pain. Jack was at his side in an instant, cradling the poor shattered wrists, rubbing them gently and uselessly.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph—"

"Shh now, don't strain yourself. I know, my dear, I know."

Stephen settled back, worn out again. If only the world outside were not so grey, the light through the grimed windows so drained. He had become accustomed to the warm Mediterranean sun, and Portsmouth – and England – had never seemed so bleak.

"Would you – could you open a window, please? The air is so beastly close in here."

"Never in life! The cold will be the death of you."

"Mrs Moss's possets will be the death of me. And the raw eggs you keep trying to sneak into my drinks, for another."

"Here, I shall just crack it thus – yes? – to give some fresh in here. Even as unmedical a man as myself knows that fresh air, but no cold, is the thing in a sickroom. At least, I'm sure that's what Mrs Beeton would say. I shall just stoke the fire against the window chill." He paused with a ruminative poker in his hand, peering into the fire as he worked.

"You know," he said at last, "I'll wager you think I am like yonder fellow."

As Jack was staring into the fire, Stephen frowned in puzzlement. "Yonder fellow?"

"That Lear."

Stephen blinked. "Jack. . . try as I might, I cannot conceive you."

Jack gave a hearty laugh at that. "'Sir, this fellow's mother could!'" he declaimed, with a wave of the poker. "You know your Shakespeare, by God, I'll grant you that. No, no," he said, lapsing back into his thoughtful mood, and replacing the poker. "I mean, I had a fancy, when I read that line – I mean, it seemed like just the thing you might say about me."

"I—" Stephen spread his hands in confusion. "Jack, aspersions on your parentage are the furthest thing from my mind, I do assure you, and while I don't personally know General Aubrey, I am certain—"

"Lord love you!" Jack laughed aloud at that. "I've not been explaining myself, as usual. No, no, not that line, bless you. I mean this one—" and he ducked his head, attending to the fire again. It struck Stephen he did not want to look up. "The one about 'He hath ever but slenderly known himself.'" He gave the fire a vicious and unnecessary stab, and met Stephen's eyes with a challenging look.

Stephen frowned. "You think I believe you to have little self-knowledge? Why, as to that, heart. . ." He shook his head as if to clear it. "Jack Aubrey, you have entirely mistaken the matter. I have never known a man so in possession of himself, so aware of who he is. You. . . " he trailed off uncertainly, marshalling his thoughts. "I would say you know yourself as well as any of us can. Better than most, even. What can have made you think such a thing of me?"

Jack did not answer, but paced the room, settling on the window seat, arms crossed. Something in his manner made Stephen uneasy.

"Shall I tell you, Stephen, why I threw away my sword?"

He waited to see if there was more, or if the question was rhetorical. Apparently it was not. "I did wonder about it, to be sure. I know how fond you were of that sword. To see you fling it into the sea like that. . . it was a shock, nothing less."

Jack nodded, resting his chin on his hand, and said nothing for a minute. "Yes," he said softly. "It was a fine sword." The silence fell again, and Stephen rode it out, watching this strange, puzzling Jack.

"I make war," Jack began slowly. "It is my business, and I have a mind to it as does any man who loves his trade. But I don't love killing. I never have. It's a job to be done, and I get it done, and don't mistake but I'm good at it."

"Yes," Stephen replied. "I know you are, at that."

"But I don't enjoy it," Jack repeated, studying the floor.

"No, of course not." Stephen felt he was failing to grasp something essential about this conversation.

"This time. In Minorca. In the. . . that place." Jack brought his hand down and turned the full force of his eyes on Stephen, and his voice dropped. "My God, but I loved it. I could have ground my heel in their bleeding faces. I could have plunged my bare hands into that bastard's guts and laughed, I tell you. Sweet Christ, never have I felt such. . . such pure happiness in the act of destroying another man's life. Dutourd. . ."

"Yes? Dutourd?" Stephen sat up straighter.

"I throttled him, Stephen. When we found him. With my hands I did it. And then I. . ." he faltered. "I ran him through, even after I knew he was dead. I tell you, if time had not been of the essence, I would have cut off his head and dragged it back to the ship and stuck it on the mizzenmast. And I'm not sorry, I tell you," he said fiercely, staring defiantly at Stephen. "Not sorry in the least. It's enough to make me turn Papist, it is, just for the pleasure of saying it to a priest and watching him flinch from me. By God, I would do it again – would joy to do it again," and he slammed his fist on his knee.

Stephen blinked. "I see."

"Do you flinch from me, Stephen?"

"No," he said softly.

"I tell you, I've never felt the like of it. It was rage, the purest rage. It is a queer thing," he reflected, "that a man can fight in battles all his grown life and never once feel actual rage. As a student of human nature, Stephen, wouldn't you find that odd?" Jack had resumed his pacing, and did not wait for an answer; nor, indeed, did Stephen have one to hand.

"I have felt battle lust and excitement, surely. And anger, that of course. Pique, irritation, dislike – all those—those— superficial, if that's the word. . . But not this. Never this." He stopped and braced himself on the low mantel.

"So you threw away your sword because you hope never to feel that way again, and never to be reminded of it."

"Aye. A foolish gesture, it was. I miss it already," he said ruefully. "And where I'll get the brass to buy another one, the dear only knows." Stephen smothered a smile at this unconscious reflection in Jack's speech of his own expressions, at the way they had bled into each other. "But I don't regret feeling that way, not a bit of it. And not just because the fucking scoundrels deserved it – not just for that. It showed me, d'ye see, it showed me. . ." he seemed to lose his thought. "It showed me things," he repeated weakly.

"Things?"

He made his way back to the little chair and settled onto it, its joints protesting. Jack was watching his hands. "I have ever but slenderly known myself," he said in the silence that fell.

Stephen felt as though a fog were closing in on him, obscuring Jack and his meaning. "What—" he began.

"If it had been Sophie – dear, kind Sophie, sweet Sophie – if it had been her they was doing those awful things to. . ." He shook his head slowly. "Of course I would have come for her, of course I would have. As I would, I hope, for any souls I loved and cared for – to leave anyone in the clutches of those wretches—" He was getting tangled again, and he scrubbed at his face. "But I doubt I would have felt such—nay, let me be honest, let me be frank, at least, in this much. Never could I have felt such rage, such bloodlust of vengeance. Not even for my own dear heart bride, not even then."

He straightened and looked at Stephen, who was quite still. "I will marry her, Stephen, you know I will. I will honour her, and our engagement. She is a good girl, a sweet girl, and I will endeavour to make a good husband to her. But that does not mean. . ." He dropped his eyes, found courage somewhere near his feet, and raised them again. "That does not mean I do not know myself. I think, at last, I do."

Stephen had seen Jack's raw courage, of course. He had known it was there when Jack had stormed the battery at Almoraira, known it was there every time Jack shrugged off cannon fire like it was duck shot, known it was there with every sweep of Jack's cutlass. Any man, he had supposed, could school himself to such courage as that, could be trained in it, acclimatised to it. But this—this was a different kind of courage altogether, and one that he knew he did not and would not ever possess. This was cold-blooded courage, this was heart of steel, and his eyes stung at it. His throat worked, but he found no sound came out.

"Jack—" was all there was, even as he rose to stir the fire again.

"Are you chilled? Shall I close that window now?"

"Will you not—will you not come here? But perhaps, put down the poker first."

Jack stretched a thin smile. "Afraid of my bloodthirsty nature, Stephen?" He clattered the poker in the grate and stood. The bed where Stephen lay seemed very far away.

"I am afraid indeed—very afraid. But you give me courage, heart," he said softly.

The bed creaked and groaned as Jack settled gingerly on its edge. "I should leave you to rest now."

"If you leave now, I shall hack off your head with that poker." He stared at his broken and useless hands lying on the counterpane, and sighed. "An idle threat, sure." He lifted one and laid it atop Jack's. "I have never yet thanked you."

"Don't," Jack said fiercely. "You must not even think it. Let there be no word of thanks between us."

"Jack. . . Jack, as to the other. . . as to what you have said. . . I am uncertain—that is. . ."

"Stephen, joy, you are not to think of it again."

His eyes were grave. "I shall think of it every day of my life, I do assure you."

That struck the wind from his sails, and he was still as Stephen asked his next question.

"This feeling, Jack—is it theoretical only?"

Jack frowned. "Theoretical?"

"Yes. More. . . an idea, you see, not a. . ." He wet his lips against a sudden dryness. "One can have certain ideas, certain feelings, and not wish to muddy them with actual fact, with the let us say physicality of emotion, with the—"

"Stephen. It is not theoretical." And from Stephen's face, he let his eyes drop to the nightgown which gaped at his chest, and lower still, with an assessing look Stephen had glimpsed many times on his face, though never directed at him. He had seen women raked with that appreciative blue gaze, and thought them fools and chits to melt so; now, he revised his opinion. Amazons, they were, all of them, to have kept their legs beneath them when Jack Aubrey regarded them so.

"I believe I shall kiss you, then, Jack. Would you like that? Or do I—do I presume?"

"I should like it of all things." But for the hoarse pitch of Jack's voice, they might have been discussing duettoes.

"Then prepare yourself." He leaned forward, praying for a measure only of his friend's courage, and closed his lips on Jack's. For a moment he just kept them pressed there, wondering at the strangeness of it, and how very much it was not strange at all, before he thought to move. Jack's lips were firm and warm beneath his, and not in the least yielding. The scrape of stubble against his upper lip gave him a start, and then a jolt which settled decidedly in his lower parts. Jack's hands came up and cradled his head, and a plundering, suddenly bold tongue slid against his, and he was lost – lost to sense, to decency, to propriety, but most of all to moderation, and he groaned into the wide warm mouth that laved him as the arms around him tightened.

"Jack—oh Christ, Jack—"

A hand plunged into his nightclothes, a hand surprisingly deft with buttons. Stephen made an ineffectual motion towards his wrist.

"Jack. You needn't."

"Let me."

"Jack – this is not exploration, not play—I can't—you mustn't imagine I shall be able to—"

"Stop yourself coming in my hand?"

His blood ran white at Jack's voice. "Oh, fuck—" And there was a large warm hand closing on him, pulling slowly at him, letting him come to full hardness, and the scientific observer in Stephen was interested to note how little his injuries seemed to be affecting his reaction time, in that area. Jack's breath was hot against the side of his face, his hand plunged deep beneath the blankets, and his panting couldn't all have been from the exertion of it.

"Jack—do you know what you are about?"

He stilled and reared back to look at him. "I've a fair notion. Not doing it wrong, am I?"

"No, that—that isn't at all my meaning. I mean, have you done this sort of thing before?" And to forestall the inevitable rejoinder—"with someone else, I mean? With—a man?"

Jack shook his head. "Not a bit of it. But I figure you can teach me as we go along, eh?" He began to move his hand again, a bit slower now, and the effect was maddening. Stephen longed to lie back and thrust into those wide deft hands, but he needed to be clear.

"But my dear, I think you are imagining—ah, God—imagining what is not the case, that—_fuck_, Jack!—that is, I don't—I haven't—" And he was caught short as he had not been in fifteen years; his release was upon him with a blinding white flash; he was coming all over Jack's hand that sped up to frenzy him, he was falling back on the pillows to thrust and stab wildly into the air as he struggled to breathe. Jack was leaning avidly over him, mouth open, breath fast, his hand plucking open his own breeches with a fumbling haste. Stephen lifted his hand and wanted to sob in frustration – oh, for a grip! For strength in his fingers, and not this racking weakness! But Jack was beyond that, clearly.

"Ah fuck, Stephen –" barely did he wrap his hand around himself before he was spilling, white and thick over the rucked-up nightgown and the linens, hot and desperate.

In the long drawn-out pants that followed, he noted Jack looked down a great deal – or to the side – or wherever his own gaze was not. It gave him a cold clench about the chest, not unlike the beginnings of a pulmonary occlusion.

"Jack," he whispered. "You're not sorry?"

"But I am," Jack said harshly, and Stephen felt the cold rush in like a sucking wound, like breathing water while drowning, and he thought, ah well. "I am so dashed sorry—can't believe I behaved like that, love—that isn't at all how I—how I wished this to be." And he made a vague gesture at the rumpled and spattered linens, his own ungainly half-dress, all the record of their inept fumblings. "I didn't mean to so lose myself, you know."

A sharp bubble of something rose and spiked in Stephen's chest. "Well, as to that," he said with a little laugh, which was all the breath he had, "I should tender my apologies first. You took me aback there, sure." He reached down and touched his chest in wonder and curiosity, where Jack's seed lay cooling.

"Here—I am ashamed to have made such a mess—" Quickly Jack swiped at him with the edge of the sheet, and Stephen knocked his hand away.

"No, Jack. No shame."

At that Jack looked up, and when he was sure he had his eyes, Stephen reached a finger into the puddle and drew up a cool strand, rubbing it on his lips, sliding his tongue against it. Jack sucked in a breath at the lewdness and the beauty of the act, and Stephen had the pleasure of watching the circle of blue iris shrink before a widening lake of black. And then, to shoot home the bolt: "Next time, you know, until my hands have recovered their strength, you shall have to make do with my lips, that I may sample more of you."

Jack groaned at that and collapsed forward into his lips, crashing onto them with more enthusiasm than finesse, and Stephen met him stroke for stroke, in this as in all else.

Long time they lay there, until the grime on the windows merged with the grime of dusk, and the clatter of the Crown's trenchers and platters rose from the kitchen below. Stephen sank in and out of the sleep that came so easily to him these days, and more than once he woke to find himself cradled on a broad bare chest, or petted back into deeper slumber when he stirred.

"Jack?" he mumbled.

"Mm."

You said something earlier, about my. . . teaching you things."

"Oh?"

"You did. You should know—" he shifted and re-settled. "I haven't the least idea myself, about any of this."

"What?" Jack propped himself on his elbow, greatly astonished, to judge by his expression.

"You look as though you had been defrauded."

"Why, so I have," he cried. "If you don't know anything, and I don't know anything, how are we ever to get on?"

Stephen chuckled. "There are books we could consult, I suppose."

"Yes, I thought it would come to that. Here I have been relying on you and your knowledge, and all your great learning is but a phantasmagoria. A mere chimaera. And there is no help for it, but I must crack a book, you tell me. Where are such books to be found, d'ye suppose? A medical library, perhaps?"

"A rather more vernacular publication, I fear. But we didn't do so badly, at that, by guesswork."

"Well, that's setting the bar almighty low, if you ask me. Oh! my dear, we were appalling. Schoolboys."

Stephen began to laugh, a deep low chuckle roiling up from within; at the utter improbability of it all, and at Jack being still Jack, and he still himself, but there were no words for it, so he simply laughed. "We shall have to make another visit to the good landlady's library. Mrs Beeton, perhaps."

Jack joined in the laugh. "Well, I'm damned if I know what chapter that would fall under."

They fell into more silence, and longer dozes, and at last Jack heard a sleepy murmur by his ear, "You're not, you know."

"Eh? Not what?"

"Like him. Lear. Not in the least."

"Oh." Jack gave a tremendous yawn and rolled over, making off with half the pillow. "That's good. A thumping great booby, that one. I always thought he was a right old idiot. 'More sinn'd against than sinning,' and all that. Never trust a man like that, I'ld say."

"Mm. Would you?" Stephen curled closer to the warmth that was Jack in his bed, and shut his eyes to the window and its promise of a fetid dawn. There were some words he ought to say, just the right words, but they did not come to him, and he was too tired to trouble with it. "'But I am sure my love's more ponderous than my tongue,'" he whispered after a while into the dark.

"Perhaps, but it's not more ponderous than your leg, which has cut off the blood to my foot. Budge over."

Stephen smiled, too tired even to laugh. The last he knew before a dreamless sleep was a gentle stroking motion over his hands and wrists, and warm breath at his temple, and a sun – the bright Mediterranean sun, which had somehow magically crept into bed with him and was pressing its hot yellow weight against him, wrapping him, enfolding him, and driving out the cold.


End file.
